


The Bitterness of Almost Making It

by AshleysWrittenWords



Category: The Legend of Zelda & Related Fandoms, The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Blood and Injury, Established Relationship, Eventual Happy Ending, F/M, Kinda Sad NGL, Mentions of Sex, POV Zelda (Legend of Zelda), Talking Link (Legend of Zelda), Wolf Link (Legend of Zelda), can't think of any more tags, zelink
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-31
Updated: 2020-06-03
Packaged: 2021-03-02 21:27:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,969
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24473521
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AshleysWrittenWords/pseuds/AshleysWrittenWords
Summary: Hadn’t this trip to southern Hyrule been nothing but a tour? The Queen’s biannual trek across the country – an activity she would normally be looking forward to. Especially when a dear friend would be meeting with her in days’ time. An arrow cut through the air and passed her shoulder.No, Zelda decided, she’d die by then.----Another one-shot that I couldn't leave alone.
Relationships: Link/Zelda (Legend of Zelda)
Comments: 14
Kudos: 120





	1. The Abyss

**Author's Note:**

> One of these days I'll learn how to leave a one-shot alone. (That day isn't today, though.)

An ambush.

Her feet stumbled before she steadied herself to continue running. The simple silk flats of the queen had long proven inadequate and had either been lost in the scurry or purposefully thrown aside. Pale flesh hadn’t touched the muddied earth since she was a child. Stray rocks punctured into her soles, but the adrenaline staved the pain away. Even still, her side burned and despite the grasp she had over the torn skin, heat seeped through. Branches and stray twigs pulled at her skirts, leaving every sound behind her filling her with the sharp edge of fear that shock her bloodstream.

Voices, yells, screams of hearing her footsteps.

Hadn’t this trip to southern Hyrule been nothing but a tour? The Queen’s biannual trek across the country – an activity she would normally be looking forward to. Especially when a dear friend would be meeting with her in days’ time. An arrow cut through the air and passed her shoulder.

No, Zelda decided, she’d die by then.

How many had there been when they cut the throats to her guards? Ten, at least. Even if she still had the goddess’s blessing to wield light, it wouldn’t be much of use. Now even that was for naught since that power had long left her fingertips but a year after Ganondorf’s defeat. It would be seven years too late now.

The holdings of her hair slipped. The chill of Spring air made her lungs bleed as her body begged to stop. But she couldn’t. If she did, she would never have the chance to run again. Oh, Hylia. A sob was muffled by her lips. It had been so long since she feared death this palpably. She wanted to fight, scream, put up a last effort before they carried out her death or ransom. Even though, she spurred her legs onward in hopes that her head wouldn’t end on a pike.

An exposed root caught her foot, making her yelp.

“I hear her, boys!” A loud call, laughter. With a flurry of skirts, she scrambled upward. Their accent wasn’t from here. At least she could have solace that this wasn’t a usurping by her own country. Zelda cursed herself for giving into the recommendations to take the carriage. If she hadn’t, she would have been far better clothed for a situation like this. There were so many things she could have done to stop this. The lives already lost on the road could still be with her. The young guard that reminded her of _him_ wouldn’t have had his neck slit just ten minutes after their seemingly mundane conversation.

Her vision shifted for a moment, nearly sending her into the bushes. “No!” she whispered vainly to herself. Zelda had been running for what seemed like ages and the boast of adrenaline was slowly wearing down. The arrow wound in her side pulsed vibrantly and it was clear that if they did not kill her now, she’d die in a ditch anyway. Would she see the morning one last time? A sunrise in Ordon was a sunrise worth suffering to see. Would it be possible she would see him again? Perhaps he would find her body.

“Link,” she breathed. A prayer on her lips. She had something desperate to tell him. _She_ needed to tell him. Bitter tears sprung from her eyes. She wanted to ride across Hyrule Field with him one more time.

_The sun had sunk low in the horizon, leaving room for the uncertainty that twilight created. It twisted the shadows and made a weary Zelda unsure if it were dawn or dusk. In the comforts of her bedroom, she had been scribbling notes down from a meeting with the council. Worry lines creased her forehead._

_“I figured you’d be at dinner by now,” he said, making her whip around in her seat._

_A rare smile bubbled onto her cheeks and she said wispily, “You’re back.” It made her nostalgic to see him garbed in green. This time his absence extended three months; one of his longer journeys. The queen stood in nothing but a slip and unmade chestnut hair. Neither of them cared for conservatism while each other’s presence._

_Link removed the dirtied green tunic, leaving a thin linen shirt, and nimbly set it aside to cross the room. His embrace let the void he left fill, if not a little bit for she knew he would never truly be hers. They stood like that for several minutes, as if their departure left them equally as ragged and worn. He had new scars, but she didn’t want to ask how they came to be. Instead, she let them be a drop in the bucket of stories Link would later tell her in the late hours of the night when he would recount his tales with dramatized gestures and give her time to memorize his voice once more._

A cry tore through her throat as a branch brushed her side. Her eyesight blurred and burned. Before the ambush they were already closing in on Ordon, was there a chance?

Against all previous reason she shouted, “Link!” It came out weak and ragged. The men behind her seemed to yell back at the sound.

“ _Link_!” It hurt to move. Goddesses, it hurt. But she did anyways, yanking her skirts high above her bleeding ankles. He loved the night and unlike herself, he still had his gifts.

Trees whipped past her. One more time with him. It was all she needed. One more night breathing the same breath he breathed to tell him they had a choice now. That he didn’t have to leave every morning for propriety’s sake. That he could stay in her bed forever if he so wanted to. It was almost ironic.

She screamed his name repeatedly until it only came out in a hoarse whisper. Her sight darkened for a horrifying moment until her knees buckled and her back hit a tree. Her body felt hot; a heat she had never known. Breathing seemed futile as it never felt like her lungs could supply enough air to her limbs. Zelda slipped to the ground, curling against the muddied dirt.

_He stayed until the sun crested the valley in shadows that mirrored when it had left. His stay had been longer than was usual. As tired as Zelda was, she woke every hour for the fear of seeing an empty bedside. An inevitable disappointment she had relived countless times. Now the rays from the sunrise made his messy hair glow. Not sleeping as well, he had circles under his eyes as he watched her from the pillows. His clothes were elsewhere and his nakedness disappeared under the sheets. Zelda was in much of the same condition, her slip had been pulled from her body soon after their reunion. Link laid on his stomach with a strong arm around her waist, lazily blinking the sleep from his forlorn eyes._

_“Don’t go,” she whispered. His grip on her tightened and he moved his head on the pillows to the side so he could properly speak._

_“I am sorry,” he started, faltering slightly. “Know that there is nothing that could keep me from you for long.”_

_“Three months is long.”_

_“Not as long as it could have been.”_

_She fell silent. He studied her before pulling her close. Without words or pleads, they made love in the morning sun and he left just as quietly._

The faint calls of the men behind her and the forest filled her mind. An owl, crickets, and the sound of something else. Zelda hadn’t even the strength to tense when she heard the sound of an animal reach her. Some kind of fox, she supposed, nosed into her hair and sniffed loudly. She wasn’t sure if foxes ate dying women, but that would be preferable to being found alive by the band of murderers.

“Zelda?” Disbelief and fear were riddled in his voice.

She could barely open her eyes. The vision of him was wobbly and it almost made her feel nauseous, not that it extinguished the rush of relief. Link examined her in detail before stopping at her side where she gasped in grave pain. His hand come back up, coated in red. There was nothing but horror in his eyes.

He ripped his own shirt, wrapping it so tightly around her that she whimpered.

“I know. I know,” he mumbled, pulling her to a seat against him. Tears wetted his shoulder. “We have to go.”

“They’re already here,” her voice was odd. Weak and useless to her ears.

Confusion filled him until he heard them. His ears twitched at the sound, like a wolf. They were close, the light of torches making their presence obvious. He went to stand until she reached for his arm, it slipped and fell into his hand where he made the effort to hold it.

“Link,” she said gravelly, tears making it difficult. “I love you.”

Link’s face paled and his jaw slackened a bit. The queen’s words were expressed through actions, it was out of character for her to speak so fondly when they weren’t between the bedsheets.

His hands touched her dirtied cheeks and she saw the world in his eyes. “I will be right back. I need you to stay awake.” Then with a desperation she had never seen, “Please, Zelda, stay awake.”

And he was gone so quickly that without the makeshift bandage fashioned tightly around her waist, she would have thought he was a hallucination. Breathing shallowly now, she leaned against the tree and fought that overwhelming tiredness that washed over her. Screams echoed through the forest.

Zelda began counting her breaths to keep her mind off of whatever was behind her and to keep herself conscious. They were short and unsteady in her lungs. Clammy hands slipped from her knees and to the ground, unable to maintain her grip. Time went by in a strange way. Heavy eyelids dropped and the weak light swam in her vision. Her breaths filled her ears and she felt trapped in her own mind.

Then, he was heaving her into his arms, cradling her form close to him.

“Stay awake,” he was quivering with eyes of blue fire. “Stay awake. Look at me, stay awake. Tell… tell me what happened.”

Zelda breathed a shaking sigh against him, his warmth coaxing her into a gentle slumber. Her lips moved lazily, tripping on words she scarcely could grasp in her mind. She rambled, tears procuring in her eyes. “They killed everybody. Everybody. Even the horses,” a weak sob, “Link, I don’t want to die.”

His pace into the unknown quickened. Link’s face hardened, but his voice was full of emotion. “You won’t die. You won’t, you can’t die. Gods, don’t close your eyes. Zelda, stay awake for me.”

“The council motioned,” Zelda breathed a labored breath. “For their approval of you. It was ten to one.”

Link stared with wide eyes ahead. A tear traced down his cheek, Zelda realized he had been crying. “Really?” He sniffed with a hysterical laugh. The treetops above them fell away to open sky, they were scaling a hill.

“We’re almost home, Zelda,” he said her name repeatedly. She wanted to ask what was wrong. Her lips parted to question his tears, but the words never verbalized.

She didn’t want to give into sleep.

“We’re going to get married.” Link was in a steady jog – why? “We’re going to get married in that little chapel where your mom was born, remember?”

All she wanted was to see him and if she closed her eyes, she harbored a foreboding suspicion that they would never open again.

“And-and we’ll have four kids,” he cursed, “Two girls and two boys because you don’t want them to be lonely. Zelda, open your eyes. Please I can’t-”

Still, it tugging at her consciousness and whispered sweet nothings to lull her towards it. And slowly, slowly she couldn’t stop it. The sounds around her fell to the background and all she could hear was the steady beat of his heart. His shouts were far away.

“ _I can’t do this without you_!”

Like a feather with a gentle breeze, she floated down a dark well as Link pleaded for her to swim upward.


	2. The Horizon

Blackness.

A deepness she had never felt pulling her into a state of nothingness.

It didn’t push, it didn’t claw or spark fear in what little consciousness she had left. Rather, it enveloped her senses and cradled her being. Zelda didn’t wonder; she didn’t think; she didn’t understand the intense feeling of loss in her breast.

Sometimes the darkness shifted – like seeing the sun with closed eyes. If a chill overtook her, it didn’t last. Whispers of safety silently reached her and despite the tugging call that pricked the absence of her thoughts, that carefully woven blackness was quick to quell the worry and coax her back into the comfort of nothing.

There was a contentedness in her soul; a rightness she couldn’t place. The cognition to identify it didn’t manifest itself to her, leaving without anything to dwell on for the first time in a long time. Her mind was used to continuous churning with endless conflicts needed to be dealt with. If she wasn’t writing her thoughts in bulleted notes, her thoughts did it for her in her sleep and slowly stifled any room for personal enjoyment. There had even been a time when she preferred that state of mind.

It had taken a man dressed in an obnoxious green with a head as stubborn as hers to convince her that life wasn’t all about solutions. Some problems weren’t meant to be solved. Sometimes merely coping was enough. In doing that, at some point she saw him as one. His presence was a thrill she never knew. He pushed her in more positive ways, showing her new places and people beyond marble walls. In turn, her curiosity pushed him to travel more as she couldn’t be out for long.

Link’s adventuring didn’t quiet that curiosity either. In the dead of night, she would find him on her balcony with a rucksack of artifacts that spanned to the far reaches of her kingdom and beyond. A common excuse was how she needed to decipher a long-dead language for him or solve an elaborate riddle. That excuse later melted into simply wanting her to see the world from her room.

The man’s absence, really, was the issue. It bothered Zelda to the point of near madness. In the short silences with her advisors, a sheer remembrance of his form would leave her carefully plotted thoughts to come tumbling down. The Hyrulean queen didn’t _forget_. She was methodic and scientific, with all her actions having a purpose. For nearly a month, she worried she had developed an early onset of Alzheimer’s. How else was she to explain the recurring blanking of her mind?

Eventually, it dawned on her. It happened in the early hours of the morning when the sun had not yet risen. Link had gathered his belongings and was scoping out the ground from the railing – trying to decide if the guard rotations had changed. They hadn’t, she knew, despite his incessant nagging.

As she watched him take account and drum his fingers against the metal, she came to the acute realization that she didn’t want him to leave. It spread to her cheeks and further when he asked her what was wrong. Like everything she told him, she spoke the truth. Except then it was in a series of flustered words that shocked him as much as it shocked her.

“I do not know what it means,” she had said about the hole he left between visits, barely meeting his eyes. “You make me happy.”

Without attempting to hide his southern drawl, he wore a toothy grin and a slight flush.

“You make me happy, too.”

The memory was cut abruptly short as a cold stiffness crawled over her. Blindly, she shifted towards the unknown warmth.

Then, without warning, a searing pain tore through her side. With a choked gasp, Zelda’s eyes shot open only to be foiled by a blinding light. The brightness faded quickly to a dull glow and that glow revealed her surroundings. The softness under her was a twin bed and the warmth wide cobalt eyes lined with dark circles. A familiar touch gently, but with a certain sternness, pulled her back down.

“Don’t move,” his voice reached her ear. The warmth left her as he moved out from the place he held her.

Blond hair shone messy in the light that filtered in from the window. Zelda was wearing a shirt she didn’t recognize and he bunched the fabric up below her breasts. The delicate manner in which he did it hadn’t insinuated sensuality, in Link’s eyes were a calculating focus that swept down the bandages that wrapped her middle. He mumbled something under his breath and as if he forgot she was there, his gaze blinked up to hers.

The frustration in his face melted into relief and then tenderness. The man lifted himself from the ground to sit on the bed. There was a slight tremor in Zelda’s hands as she felt the smoothness of his face and he leaned down. His callous fingers lightly grasped her forearms and traced light circles on her soft skin. When their foreheads touched, words couldn’t suffice to express hushed alleviation in their hearts.

“I have been gravely injured, imprisoned against my will, and suffered grief so great I thought I would die,” Link said, opening his eyes to look into hers. “But nothing has scared me so immensely than facing a reality without you.”

His hands folded over her trembling ones and brought them to his mouth for a long kiss. Zelda watched him with knitted brows. For a long moment, she relished in the fact that he was merely existing here with her.

“Thank you,” she croaked out. The dryness of her throat made her cough, which made her wince painfully.

It made him frown, “You need water.”

He kept a light grasp on her wrist. “It’s been two days.”

Two days? That was what she wanted to ask, but she feared the pain that would come with speaking. Thankfully, he read her astonishment.

“I thought you wouldn’t wake up,” he shook his head, raking a hand through his hair and went to rummage through a bag across the room. From the distance he mused about where he had put his skein.

When he returned he helped her to a partial seat, mindful of her injury.

“Slow,” he quietly goaded her when she went to take in more water than she could reasonably bear. “Or you’ll start coughing again.”

“Have,” Zelda tested. Her throat hurt, but not as scraping as before. “Have you told anyone where I am?”

“Only a couple people in Ordon,” he mumbled, capping the water skein again. “I sent notice to the castle without including a location. Not when I don’t know why this happened.”

“I doubt there is a keenness to replace me so quickly.”

A ghost of a smile graced his hardened features. “No, I doubt there is.”

They settled into a comfortable silence as his gaze was split between her and the bandages. Then, Link somberly drew a feather-like touch over her skin, “It’s going to scar. I’m afraid I’m not used to stitching up other people.”

Zelda nodded, not remotely as worried about her appearance as he feared. If she had to guess, she was in a state of disrepair as it was. Her hair was completely free to be as unruly as it wished and the long shirt she wore wasn’t even her own. Though, she did notice Link had tried to wipe the dirt off her skin the best he could. Her fingers lazily found his, interlocking into a seamless hold. Affection bloomed in her chest when he squeezed his hand around hers.

“You told me about the council’s vote,” he said.

In truth, she thought that had been a dream. Zelda bit the inside of her lip, watching for his reaction and when he displayed none, her chest tightened.

Zelda shook her head, “Link, you don’t have to accept. I went behind your back and it was not fair of me.”

She was grasping for straws now, trying to find the right words in her lap. Link’s entire life was in the outdoors. For her to wrought him of that enjoyment…

Link breathed in and held it. “A month ago I proposed to you and you broke down.”

His eyes were critically examining her digits, turning over her hand as if it were foreign. His voice was indifferent, “You were distraught about something. I couldn’t figure out whether it was the ring or the man that was wrong. Then, I heard you say ‘the kingdom’.” He looked up at the ceiling, “And I thought ‘I can deal with being accused of treason if she let me steal her away’. But that wasn’t it because you wouldn’t abandon a lost dog, much less Hyrule.

“I like to think I’m an observant man, so when you went on about royal marriages and the rules for it I figured it was your way of letting me down. Gods, it hurt, but I could get through that if it made you happy,” he met her with a quizzical brow. “How would requesting my candidacy for marriage be considered going behind my back?”

“Because,” she faltered, “Because I don’t want to trap you into a life you don’t want. It’s not easy and I care about you more than that.”

He squeezed her hand again and searched her eyes. “Zelda, I’ve been romantically involved with the queen for years. I have read virtually every book about the constitutions of being your husband since I realized how horribly and irrevocably in love with you I am.”

Her face fell. “But Link-”

“Do you want me?” There was a desperation in his tone. His fingers twitched nervously. His words were thick, “I don’t come from much. If that’s your concern, I understand, and I’ll do everything I can to learn the right etiquette.”

“I want you more than anything,” Zelda said quickly. “I want _you_. Not the pleasantries and the etiquette and the manners. Your presence would be enough.”

The tension in his grip slipped and suddenly he left her side. She grew afraid that she had said something wrong until he came back with a small trinket in his hand. In the same manner as he did a month ago, he got down on one knee.

He cleared his voice and smiled, “I did this once and I’ll do it a million more times until I get an answer. Will you marry me?”

Queen Zelda had always told herself and her constituents that she didn’t need protecting. She was a master in the art of archery and could hold her own in a fair fight. For so long, she was convinced that if she could hold her own nothing could reach her. Especially not the hero she hardly knew that stuck around to rebuild after the disaster.

The petite ruby ring in his hand sparkled in the morning light, but all she saw was the hope in his eyes. It was then that she found that she wanted to wake up to that every morning, no matter the obstacles she had to overcome – because now he would by her side to help. The pain in her side subsided further with the realization.

Watery eyes clouded her vision as it did then. Her answer first came in a nod and then a weak, “Yes.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This holds true to my inability to not be able to leave things sad. 
> 
> I guess I can now say that the first chapter was largely based on that one time I donated blood in high school and I passed out. The only difference was that I was not chased by assassins and the nurse was not an attractive man that wanted me in his life. It's a shame, really.
> 
> Thanks for the nice comments! I meant to finish this yesterday, but I didn't realize how busy my schedule was when I posted.


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